Noonan: ‘You Are Terrifying Us’

WSJ ^ | 8/7/2009 | Peggy Noonan

[markomalley]

We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate.

They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it “Hillary’s revenge.” When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months ago, she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care vision. He won. Now he would push what he had been forced to highlight: Health care would be a priority initiative. The net result is falling support for his leadership on the issue, falling personal polls, and the angry town-hall meetings that have electrified YouTube.

In his first five months in office, Mr. Obama had racked up big wins—the stimulus, children’s health insurance, House approval of cap-and-trade. But he stayed too long at the hot table. All the Democrats in Washington did. They overinterpreted the meaning of the 2008 election, and didn’t fully take into account how the great recession changed the national mood and atmosphere.

And so the shock on the faces of Congressmen who’ve faced the grillings back home. And really, their shock is the first thing you see in the videos. They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush, anti-Republican, and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits, they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs.

[abb]

Peggy, you're nothing to me now. You're not a sister, you're not a friend. I don't want to know you or what you do. I don't want to see you on television, or read what you write. I don't want you near any conservative conferences. When you see my friends, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be there. You understand?

With apologies to Michael Corleone.

[PowderMonkey]

"They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan...

Peggy's still under the influence. It never was a "health-care plan." It is a coup de'etat through control of our finances, life-sustaining pharmaceuticals, and killing off all those pesky conservative elderly types through bureaucratic neglect. Ready for "end of life counseling', Peg?

[central_va]

Elitist snob alert....

[DGHoodini]

Not one finger was laid, not even one hair on anyones head was moved out of place by anyone at the Town Halls, until the Union Mobster Goons showed up to do the violence they were ordered and paid to do, by their criminal Union Mobster Bosses, who were doing the bidding of their DemoCriminal Party Leadership.

[Arthur McGowan]

But I still won’t click on the link, because I don’t want to be counted as “reading” Noonan.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Peggy always wants to be seen as out front, leading the parade. 8 months ago when everyone was swooning about our “historic” election, Peg was right there with them, in between bites of Brie and mouthfuls of Chardonnay. Now the societal trope is “hands off my healthcare” Peggy is hopping on that bandwagon. She’s a useful idiot, insofar, as she drifts with whichever way the wind is blowing. Essentially, a weathervane.

[snowsislander]

Obama has demonstrated his contempt for this country since day one; photographs such as the famous pledge of allegiance one

and his attendance at Reverend Wright's hate-filled sermons, damning America, have made it clear to everyone that he has no love for this country. He continues to refuse to produce evidence that he is even an American citizen, something that would literally take one telephone call to Hawaii to effect by giving them permission to release his original vital records.

And Ms. Noonan somehow was gulled into believing that the extreme left-winger Obama, a man whose leftist record even exceeded that of Bernie Sanders, was somehow going to anything other than plunge the nation into radical socialism?

[conejo99]

Most of the posts here are overly negative. Noonan’s reaction is very interesting and illustrative. She represents the thinking of the establishment republicans.
When she tells the administration that they should consider backing off, you can bet that the middle of the road Republicans are going to stick solidly to their opposition to this horrible plan. If the moderate Republicans see that position is the safest bet, you can reasonably hope that the newly elected Democrats from marginal seats are wondering the same thing.

[sand lake bar]

Sweetie finally writes something reasonable.

[Obadiah]

She’s dead to me.

Dead and totally irrelevant.

[kevkrom]

Most of the posts here are overly negative. Noonan’s reaction is very interesting and illustrative. She represents the thinking of the establishment republicans.

Understood. But the problem is that we told Noonan that this was the type of thing that was going to happen, but she was all wrapped up in going ga-ga over someone who read the "right" books, got the "right" education, and stoked the self-styled intellectual's egos.

She's late to the party, and until she admits what a fool she was, it's still the broken-clock syndrome.

[leilani]

Sounds like Peggy is going to cry for her Messiah here.

And yet she still gives him the benefit of the doubt. Her Obamessaiah gives his thugs the clear & unmistakable signal to "Punch back" (just like he did during the Democratic caucuses, btw, where Hillary delegates were manhandled & abused also at his overt instigation), they dutifully take their marching orders & comply by promptly beating up concerned citizens at these town halls, and she still manages to somehow give him a pass:

All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office.

Honestly, how pathetically naive can this poor woman be?

Ol' Peg better get down on her knees and beg that this monstrosity doesn't pass. The terminal blindness she apparently suffers from would make her a prime candidate for Obama's Death Facilitation Camps! Since there's clearly no hope for her, it's far better that the government's scarce socialized medical resources be spent on somebody younger who at least has the potential for eventually seeing what's right under their very noses.

[Malesherbes]

Even Noonan detects which way the wind is blowing. As the economists say, she’s a trailing indicator.

[andy58-in-nh]

Noonan gets it... a little. She still appears to believe that Obama somehow miscalculated, that he unintentionally overreached and must now pull back in the strategic interest of quelling a public revolt he did not quite anticipate.

What Peggy fails to understand in her little Upper East Side bubble is that Obama and his inner circle calculated this effort entirely. It is fully intentional and designed to produce the very confusion, conflict, and turmoil we see today.

In the midst of such upheaval, one's political adversaries may be motivated and moved to anger, but they can also be identified and systematically engaged. I believe that is the next stage of the plan now beginning to unfold.

I have little doubt that key opponents of the health care plan - and cap-and-trade, and Cash for Clunkers, and the blizzard of other initiatives thrown at the American people like confetti - are being tracked and targeted by the White House and its political allies.

Soon they will call out the troops: ACORN, SEIU, ANSWER, Rainbow/PUSH, ThinkProgress, La Raza, and hundreds of organizations you've probably never heard of, but which are linked through an intricate network of leftist activism, and funded by multi-billion dollar foundations like Tides, MacArthur, Pew, and Carnegie.

Think I'm paranoid? I suspect that very soon, you will be too.

[McGruff]

Ol' Peg better get down on her knees and beg that this monstrosity doesn't pass. The terminal blindness she apparently suffers from would make her a prime candidate for Obama's Death Facilitation Camps!

Ouch. That's gotta leave a mark. LOL

...in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office.

Kinda sounds like that "not ready to lead on day one" we heard some claim in the past.

[GBA]

Kinda late to the party, Peg. Did you really not see who and what your obamessiah and his minions in the demonrat party are way back in November or were you too busy swooning?

[Bratch]

In the tradition of the Maureen Dowd threads, I suggest we adopt a new rule for any Peggy Noonan threads.

[relictele]

Usually when a president is elected or a political movement gains momentum the Poli Sci and Sociology classes at colleges try to get hip and read the book-of-the-moment such as Obama’s drivel or Orwell’s old warhorses.

Ironically most of the profs already have read and adhere to Alinsky so there’s nothing new under the sun to examine!

[Sloth]

Peggy, you’re still a fool. Oh, by the way, call Kathleen Parker and update her on the new talking points, she’s a little behind.

[Sloth]

That’s actually the *least* attractive pic of Palin I’ve seen... makes her look like Wynonna Judd.